Darkness Come To Play
by Anime Girl23
Summary: Chronos didn't hesitate and Leonard Snart died on the Waverider. Nothing went right after that.


**Contains:** Murder and suicide.

Darkness Come To Play  
One-shot

Leonard Snart died on the Waverider.

Chronos stared down at him for a moment, contemplative and waiting for a flicker of Mick Rory to begin raging. Nothing came. No regret. No remorse. Satisfaction washed over him, melding with the hate he'd held onto for lifetimes. The death—and his freedom—had been guaranteed before Snart ever walked into the cell. Vague memories told him that Snart had always been a scrapper, but he'd preferred long-distance weapons that meant he didn't have to touch people.

He would have liked to drag it out and exact the vengeance he'd been wanting for years, but the sound of cartilage and bone shattering into Snart's brain had been a nice consolation prize.

"A deal's a deal," he told the body before he dragged it up by the arm and pressed a limp hand to the scanner. He left him lying between the doors and gave it one final kick that made the head roll to the side. "Fool."

It was two hours before anyone realized something was wrong, but Kendra was the one that finally found him, dead eyes staring down the hall and blood crusted over his skin. She screamed.

* * *

Between fits of _how could he do this_ and _I don't understand_ , the team seethed. The body of one of their own lay on ice—appropriate and awaiting a dark pun that would never come—and his killer was gone.

Ray broke his hand in a fit of anger against the wall that wasn't like him, but he slid to the floor aftewards, crying, and that was. Kendra hugged him to her chest and let him cling to her.

"I'm gonna kill him," Sara said, fingernails digging into her palms. "We should have killed him in Nanda Parbat."

"Mr. Snart-"

"Snart's _dead_ ," she snapped at Stein, too harsh, but Jax was the one that flinched. "He made the wrong choice."

"We'll find Chronos," Rip promised, "but we have to continue. The Time Masters have protocols and if Chronos has abandoned his mission to bring us in, others will be coming."

"We need to bury him," Stein said, solemn. "He was Jewish. There are practices-"

"We don't have time."

"Make it," Stein said firmly, stomach churning at the thought of their teammate being denied something he knew the man had wanted. They'd discussed it once, musing over possibilities while they shared a bottle of Rip's scotch. They'd never been friends—never would be now—but there had been a camaraderie with their shared religion. It was the only thing they'd ever shared between them, other than barbs that suddenly felt childish.

" _For as lax as you are, I'm surprised you'd hold to a tradition like that."_

" _There's no point in holding onto the dead. Anything happens, just make sure I get back to my sister."_

" _And I to Clarissa."_

"I made Mr. Snart a promise," Stein said as he straightened his back, "and I intend to keep it."

"Fine," Rip sighed. "Gather his things and we'll stop by 2016, but we don't have time to linger."

"Understood."

* * *

They didn't understand anything. Snart's room was already packed when they reached it, spartan and unlived in, except for the duffle and letter sitting next to it. Kendra read it, voice shaking until she reached the end and she dropped down onto the mattress.

The line between murder and suicide blurred. Revenge and penance.

It didn't bring them any peace.

* * *

"Where's Lenny?" Lisa sobbed, tears falling and shoulders heaving as hands lifted her off the floor. She clung to wrists, desperate, and torn nails dragged over armor. "Mick-"

Chronos stared at her, unmasked, but his eyes remained cold. He held no hatred for her, but she had been cherished by Snart and he'd told the man he'd kill her. He couldn't make Snart watch, but promises were promises.

"Mickey," she gasped in what he thought must have been a childhood nickname, but it meant nothing to him now. She meant nothing. "Please-"

He slid a blade in between her ribs and she didn't say anything else.

* * *

The team buried two people that night, crying and hateful. Lisa had been dead when they reached Gideon's location, skin cold and the knife still buried in her chest.

They'd failed them both.

* * *

His ship was still in Nanda Parbat, inactive and dusty, but perfectly functional. He sneered down at the shattered pieces of flesh rotting on the floor, ice long since melted. Pathetic. Sentimental. Snart's love for Mick Rory had been the thing to kill him in the end, because for all the prowess he'd gained over the years, he'd never truly stopped being the scrawny brat that got himself in over his head.

"Target is dead," he reported to his AI as it came out of hibernation. "Leonard and Lisa Snart are dead."

"Excellent," the AI responded, but the tone stayed flat. "What of the rest of the Waverider's crew?"

"Leonard and Lisa Snart are dead."

"Reported."

"Leonard and Lisa Snart are dead."

"Chronos?"

His fists clenched and spasmed as his heart dropped to his feet. His stomach churned. "Len and Lisa are dead," Mick repeated, broken, and slid to the floor beside the console. Dead, dead by his own fucking hands and… God… "What did I do?"

* * *

He returned to the Vanishing Point with a disabled AI and hands that wouldn't stop shaking. He hid them under the weight of his armor the same way he hid tear-stained cheeks under his helmet.

" _We look after each other. It's you and me, right?"_

He didn't speak. He didn't stop. He just kept walking through familiar halls and venturing towards restricted sections. Geoffrey's voice—before he'd ripped the hard drive out with his bare hands—had given him the information he needed. The Oculus. Savage. The Waverider's crew could get Savage, but the Oculus was his and his alone. They'd used it to force a wedge between Snart and him, playing them both like a couple fiddles until Mick was Chronos and Len was dead.

" _I wish there were some other way, Mick."_

Len and Lisa were dead and he'd been the one to do it.

" _I always, always was coming back for you."_

He buried his arm in the Oculus, but all he saw were Len's resigned face and Lisa's tears. The only two people he had in his life and he'd…

" _And I'm willing to bet that some little piece of the old you is in that armor somewhere."_

He shot the Time Masters dead as they tried to stop him and kept his hand inside the chamber as the whole thing went critical. It stopped nothing. It _fixed_ nothing. Len was still dead. Lisa was still dead. But there was no coming back from this, no life after the things he'd done and the people he'd killed.

" _Don't do it. Don't kill him."_

He choked out an apology as everything went blue, then white, and wished he believed in an afterlife, but he never had. Fire had been the only thing he'd ever worshipped.

* * *

The world burned, but it wasn't beautiful.

He hadn't deserved that after what he'd done.

The End


End file.
